This project investigates the trajectory and eventual dissolution of the Network of Asian Women’s Film Festivals (NAWFF), focusing on the efforts of its core hosting organisations in Taipei and Seoul. Established in 2009, NAWFF was initiated by three women’s film festivals in Seoul, Taipei, and the Tokyo International Women’s Film Festival. Bound by a shared commitment to feminism, this decade-long network pursued ambitious goals: promoting feminist causes across national borders; empowering Asian women directors; facilitating the transnational circulation of feminist films. However, the network ceased operation by 2019. As the oldest (Taiwan) and the largest (Seoul) women’s film festivals in Asia, both feminist-theme festivals were founded upon resistance politics, challenging patriarchal and heteronormative structures through film festival practices and advocacy for women’s rights. However, both institutions experienced recurring financial and organisational challenges. When first conceived in 2007, NAWFF functioned as a collective line of flight from the recurring financial precarity faced by its member festivals. Through this transnational framework, both festivals sought to secure funding and institutional sustainability. From the perspective of festival studies, this paper examines NAWFF as a “festival mediator”. It explores the organisational structure, curatorial strategies, financial flows, and modes of disseminating feminist films across the network. The paper argues that the eventual dissolution of NAWFF can be understood as a form of queer failure. The dissolution of NAWFF opened up new possibilities for grassroots feminist solidarity, while the transformations of the festival body enabled women’s film festivals to survive through new institutional forms.

Authors:
Sophie Shu-Yi Lin, Kun Shan University, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Sophie Shu-yi Lin is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Motion Pictures and Video, and the Graduate School of Media Arts, at Kun Shan University in Taiwan.

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